There are two mistakes that employers often make when handling bullying complaints made during the disciplinary process

The turmoil in global financial markets is driving many recent retirees and mature age workers back into the workforce, according to LINK Recruitment. “We are seeing an increasing number of job seekers over 50 re-entering the workforce, as they seek to supplement their superannuation,” said Ben Cass, general manager of LINK Recruitment’s Melbourne office. “Recent data from SuperRatings shows the average balanced superannuation fund lost 5.7 per cent in the 12 months to the end of August. In our experience, this seems to be a strong motivation for many people to return to the workforce.”

Work preference is the key to keeping employees happy

Companies often overlook the importance of recognising the different work styles of employees, and HR managers can play a vital role in company success by focusing on this issue, according to global teamwork expert Dick McCann. Understanding employees’ work styles and how to put together teams accommodating different work styles will help HR managers create happy, productive teams, he said. Uncertain economic times made it even more important for companies to keep employees happy, because happy employees stay put, reducing the need for recruitment, he added.

Are Australian workplaces pruning too hard?

More than half of Australian employees believe they are operating under extremely low staffing levels and 82 per cent said they are expected to do far more work today than they were five years ago, according to a survey of 2703 people by Talent2. “In fact, 72 per cent said they currently do the job of more than one person,” said John Banks of Talent2. “And this makes for a very stressful and unproductive workplace … It is a knee-jerk reaction to cut staff numbers to the bare minimum as it creates a false bottom line. Yes, the salaries go down, but so does productivity and output. There are lessons in the austerity from the last recession and certainly it is unreasonable to expect employees to do the job of more than one person for an extended period of time.”